On the face of it, Mark E. Smith and Mouse on Mars’ Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma are an unlikely match. But from the first bars of the preternaturally funky opener of their collaboration as Von Südenfed, “Fledermaus Can’t Get It,” it’s evident that the Fall’s notoriously acerbic front man and Cologne’s most ebulliently idiosyncratic electronicists have managed a merger made in musical heaven. St. Werner and Toma create a deliriously infectious mix of eclectic techno grooves, from the chugging, soulful sing-along “Rhinohead” to the dubstep, bassbin burner “Serious Brainskin.” And Smith is back in fine, cantankerous form, spouting off in pidgin German on “Speech Contamination/German Fear of Osterre” and holding forth on the euphoric “Family Feud,” with its cockeyed chorus of “I am Andi! I am the great MES!” Lest you think it’s all egocentric dance-floor fun and games, there’s also an utterly tweaked acid-blues track about boiling — or not boiling — a chicken, as well as a lovely, affecting Afropop-inspired closer titled “Dear Dead Friends.” “We live in strange and mysterious times,” Smith rails at one point. Tromatic Reflexxions is a soundtrack for such times.

Contorted funk The tracks on St. Werner’s fourth album as Lithops are eccentric, loose-limbed constructions, heavy on contorted rhythms, off-kilter beats, and writhing swirls of noise.

Freestyle fellowships Although crunk partisans probably won’t care for the comparison, LA rapper Busdriver might be thought of as the indie hip-hop analogue to Lil’ Wayne.

The Intelligence | Fake Surfers With more and more blasted lo-fi nerd bait polluting the record bins and stolen-music blogs these days, it's gotten increasingly difficult to sort out the real deal from the hangers-on.

The Fall | Your Future Our Clutter If you didn’t know any better, you might think that Your Future Our Clutter is a recording of a raving old lunatic heckling a very solid instrumental band.

Band of outsiders The Beatings got back from their eighth US tour the day before, but they’re already reconvening over at frontman Eldridge Rodriguez’s misplaced little two-story beach house in Lower Allston. I do a double take on the way through the cute picket fence.

Feel the music I personally find it comforting that the current number-one single in the country has a chorus that goes "I'll gas up the jet for you tonight, and baby we can go wherever you like."

Honey Clouds At last! Honey Clouds, an indie-rock four-piece full of familiar faces, emerged from their year-long gestation to play their first show.

Bo Diddley was a gunslinger Grab a stack of albums at random and scan the liner notes. Ten bucks says you’ll find the name “E. McDaniel” listed among the song credits on at least one of them.

Psych out Conversations about music can easily turn into conversations about geography.